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'Academic terrorist' lecturer sacked
Shame Makoshori, Financial Gazette (Zimbabwe)
March 20, 2008

http://allafrica.com/stories/200803200719.html

Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) president and Great Zimbabwe University history lecturer Takavafira Zhou has been fired after the institution of higher learning labelled him an "academic terrorist".

The University also said Zhou's teaching and university service were unsatisfactory. Zhou, who leads Zimbabwe's most radical workers' union that has on several occassions led anti-government strikes, has been teaching at Great Zimbabwe University since 2004. He has instituted legal action to challenge his dismissal.

Court documents obtained by The Financial Gazette this week indicate that his four years at the university were stormy. Zhou has clashed with the Great Zimbabwe University Vice Chancellor Obert Maravanyika on a number of occasions, including an instance over allegations that he spearheaded a strike at the university in 2006. Attached to the court documents is a letter to the university's chairman, Honour Mkushi, which was copied to President Robert Mugabe in his capacity as Chancellor, in which Zhou alleged he had been victimised because he failed a history student, Precious Chitapi.

In a December 2006 dossier alleging corruption within the University's administration, Chitapi is cited as Maravanyika's "girlfriend", but documents at hand identify her as a "relative" of the Vice Chancellor. "University regulations have been changed and applied in retrospect merely to benefit Precious," Zhou said in a letter dated February 29 2008. "When she scored 39 percent in June 2007, regulations were changed at the insistence of the VC (Vice Chancellor) to allow for supplementary examinations in a semesterised system. Her mark was raised to 40 percent to allow her to get into the supplementary range. When she scored 47 percent and 42 percent in two history courses in November 2007 and an external examiner confirmed that these were clear cases of failure, the VC extremely got angry," Zhou alleges in the court documents he has filed to challenge his dismissal, copies of which are in the possession of this newspaper. "What is baffling is the unwillingness of Precious to appeal using the normal university procedure," Zhou says. He cites other cases, such as one in which lecturers were allegedly victimised after a sociology candidate, Hwicho Hwicho, who is alleged to be related to the VC, failed. Zhou alleged the lecturers were obliged to "buy peace" by re-marking examination scripts. He alleged the "abuse of power" at Great Zimbabwe University had triggered a staff exodus.

Out of a possible staff complement of nine, the history department only has four lecturers. Zhou charged that Maravanyika's personal vendetta against him was rooted "in his false belief that" Zhou was the brains behind a dossier in 2006 alleging corruption in the university administration. The document led to an extensive investigation by the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education into the affairs of the university. Maravanyika accused Zhou of saying and writing "bad things about President Mugabe and himself." "When I reminded him that, while I could talk of President Robert Mugabe in the History of Zimbabwe since 1890 course, I could not figure out why I would talk of an unknown figure in history by the name of Prof Maravanyika, he was very angry," Zhou said. "The VC called me an academic terrorist," he alleged. Maravanyika on Tuesday denied the allegations, arguing Zhou was conducting himself in an "unprofessional" manner to the extent that he fought students in lectures and did not take arguments lightly. "He had a scuffle with a student in class and he threatened to fail anybody who reported the incident," Maravanyika said. "Precious failed because Zhou suspected that she was reporting to me what transpired in the history lessons. She is not my girlfriend, we are related." Zhou has engaged Donsa-Nkomo Legal Practice to represent him in his fight to win his job back. On March 7 2008, the law firm wrote to Mkushi demanding that the university reinstates Zhou, arguing his teaching records were excellent.

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